


An Impossible Question

by talefeathers



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Drabble, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Ishbal | Ishval, Ishval Civil War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-09 03:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20484434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/talefeathers/pseuds/talefeathers
Summary: Hughes isn't satisfied with the answer he gave when Mustang asked him why he fights, but a satisfactory answer proves difficult to come by.





	An Impossible Question

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: [Things you said when I was crying.](https://sickburnsides.tumblr.com/post/187127461253/prompts-1-things-you-said-at-1-am-2-things)

_ Hughes. Why do you fight? _

_ It’s simple. I don’t want to die. _

It had been a flippant response, and not like him at all. Hughes had known that, even as the words had tumbled out of his mouth. Still, he’d had to say something, hadn’t he? Something to keep him from considering that question too closely. Something to keep the veneer from crumbling.

_ Why do you fight? _

Hughes kicked at the sand beneath his feet as he walked, barely visible in the dim light of the waning moon.

It had been an easy enough question to answer when he’d first joined up. There had still been a flippant response, of course—_It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than university!_—but Hughes had never been one to leave things at that. _ I want to protect those who aren’t strong enough to protect themselves, _ he would have continued. _ I want to create a country where children can grow up safely. _

Hughes stopped walking when he reached the edge of a canyon, eyes heavy with nights he had not slept. Chest tight with something he refused to name.

With all the blood on his hands now, the old answers rang thin. He couldn’t have said any of that to Mustang after all he had watched without intervening. After all he had done without protest. No, that delusion could not hold.

Whatever this was, it was not protection.

_ Why do you fight? _

He also couldn’t have told Mustang that he didn’t know; it would have been worse to say that, in fact. To take part in something as monstrous as a war of extermination with only lukewarm motives was one thing. To do so without any motive at all…

“Wandering out here alone in the dark is a good way to get yourself ki—”

Adrenaline sparked through Hughes’s veins as he whirled, pistol drawn, on Roy Mustang, just in time to watch the last of a smirk fall from the lieutenant colonel’s face.

“Hughes,” Mustang said, palms raised, eyes wide. “Are you okay?”

It wasn’t until Hughes opened his mouth to respond that he realized the tightness in his chest had crawled into his throat.

“Roy,” he said weakly, trying to smile as he holstered his pistol. “Sorry. I was just thinking about before. When you asked me why I fight. I told you it was because I don’t want to die.”

Mustang nodded, holding Hughes in that sharp gaze of his.

“Well, the truth is, that was a bit of a dodge.” Hughes clenched both his fists when his voice came out wavering. “The truth is. The truth is that I—I don’t—”

Hot tears tracked their way down Hughes’s rough cheeks as sobs crushed the words in his throat.

“Hey. Hey.” Mustang was there in an instant, tugging one of Hughes’s elbows with a gentleness so incongruous with the Flame Alchemist that Hughes wondered distantly if he’d managed to catch some sleep, after all. 

“Come on,” Mustang murmured, “sit down.”

They sat side by side on the edge of the canyon, with their feet dangling over the drop, and that was when Hughes began to sob in earnest, with his face buried deep in his hands. A few moments passed this way before Mustang wrapped an arm around Hughes’s shoulders and touched his head briefly to the captain’s.

“It isn’t always going to be like this,” Mustang assured him quietly. “We’re going to change it. Remember? You and me, and Hawkeye. From the inside out.” He gave Hughes’s shoulder a squeeze, and Hughes anchored himself to it, closing his eyes. “I promise.”


End file.
